Understanding Tangential and Normal Acceleration

When a body moves in two dimensional motion, its velocity magnitude and direction both may change.

Change in velocity is always due to some acceleration in body, which is caused by an external force.

When a force acts on a body in two dimensional motion, the direction of force is very important in

deciding what changes will happen in the body velocity.

The force component along the tangential

direction to trajectory of body causes the change in magnitude of velocity and the acceleration due to

this is called Tangential Acceleration and the force component which acts along the normal to trajectory

of body causes the change in direction of velocity and acceleration due to this component of force is

called Normal Acceleration which is also termed as Centripetal Acceleration.

To understand it thoroughly, see the videos below –

https://youtu.be/E6fNMDOD2kk


Based on the understanding of Tangential and Normal Acceleration which are the two rectangular

components of a force, there are many physical situations where these concepts are extremely helpful.

See the examples below to follow the applications of these concepts.

https://youtu.be/P8TLTSdnVz0

https://youtu.be/gPQ3jCR01Fs

https://youtu.be/poUBOzXVxJU

https://youtu.be/SmyRqYEQwB0

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